1, AnyPlayer
Answering a question HERE, I've thoroughly re-tested the current version (1.5.3) of AnyPlayerHD and found out that it's equally bad (very low-performance decoders, no hardware MKV acceleration etc. etc.) as was the one I reviewed HERE, in late May. That is: this player is still not worth bothering with as there are much-much better players - even for free (for example, iMedia Player introduced below). Stay away!
2, EC Player
As you may already know (see for example THIS), the previous iPhone model, the iPhone 4S, couldn't truly record video with more than 30 frames per second (fps) without, by 50%, decreased vertical resolution and (with the 1080p-native 4S) switching to 720p resolution. Now, let's take a look at how the iPhone 5 behaves in this respect! Can it record 30+ fps video at all?
I've created a directly deployable .deb installer file of my iPhone 3GS and 4 Video Camera Enhancer tweaks for iOS5+ (see THIS and THIS, respectively, for an explanation, quick tutorial and sources). They allow for installing the tweaks without having to have access to a desktop Xcode. I've also made sure the installers themselves set the right write permissions of the configuration file (and its enclosing directory) they modify upon tweaking the video recording parameters. This means installing them has become orders of magnitude easier.
I've constantly been receiving requests for the iOS5+ compliant version of my iOS 4-only iPhone 3G S / 4 video camera enhancers (latest, dedicated article). This tool is still unique in that it's the only GUI-based tool (read: no need for manual plist copying) to quickly and easily do the following:
- change the video bitrate to allow for, for example, long-time recordings using low bitates
- change to the special resolution of 1080*800, which does deliver considerably better resolution than the default 640*480.
Another, audio DSP-wise excellent (see THIS for my review) player has ended up dropping Dolby (AC-3, E-AC-3 and TrueHD) support: TTplayerHD. This, as has been pointed out in the introduction of my yesterday's article, renders tons of typical video recordings (for example, direct digital TV recordings in the US or all AVCHD videos) unplayable. Here's the AppStore update list (Dolby audio dropping annotated by me):
Today, I (finally) had some time to thoroughly test how the excellent Cydia tweak “CameraTweak” runs on the iPhone 4. (Dedicated, earlier review with thorough iPhone 3G S, 4S and iPod touch 4 tests HERE)
As with the earlier-tested models (iPhone 3G S, 4S and iPod touch 4), the still shooting tweaks (one-shot timer mode; making a shot every second after a settable timeout; locking the white balance / setting the exposure independent of the focus point etc.) all worked just fine.
Unfortunately, more and more players (my last, three-day-old, related article reporting on no less than five(!) players' doing the same) end up dropping AC-3 (and related) audio support, meaning the inability to play back the audio in a lot of videos: all AVCHD ones (camera MTS files etc.), about half of MKV's (AC-3 is very popular with MKV's, the other popular audio format being DTS), all ATSC (U.S.) digital TV broadcast recordings, a lot of AVI's etc. - as is also mentioned by THIS, RushPlayer-AC-3-drop-related post.
When, more than a year ago, I've reviewed (and recommended) the 24/7 remote desktop service (and its iOS client) AlwaysOnPC, I've mentioned it still didn't have audio transfer support – unlike, say, even the free version of LogMeIn.
Now, it has been added. The AppStore update page:
I've heartily recommended (article) the (jailbreak-only), free(!) Photo Info tweak for anyone using his or her iDevice as a camera: it makes it possible to quickly review the EXIF information, including the GPS data, of a shot you take, without having to transfer / import the shot to an EXIF/mapping-capable third-party application like Photo Manager Pro – something painfully missing from Apple's own stock Photos app.
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